


With or Without You

by Lakritzwolf



Category: Being Human (UK), The Almighty Johnsons
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-16 10:28:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4621881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lakritzwolf/pseuds/Lakritzwolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the <a href="http://britchellcontributionfest.tumblr.com/">Britchell Contribution Fest</a> on tumblr, the prompt was this picture:</p><div class="center">
  <p>
    <br/>
    <img/>
  </p>
  <hr/>
</div>
            </blockquote>





	With or Without You

One night stands.

Too many of those, all of them meaningless, quite a few of them ending in death. 

Throughout different countries, different continents, even. Years upon years upon years, memories layered upon memories. He had been careful and choosy at first. Later, it had ceased to matter. All of them were just bodies now, male bodies, female bodies, some of them dead when he had left them, some alive.

He had given in. He had gotten up and fought it again. At one point, he had believed killing Herrick and Seth would free him.  
In a way, it had.

But he could never be free of himself, of what he had become, and no matter where he went he could not escape it, as little as he could run away from his own shadow. In the right mood, he envied Peter Pan. If he’d been able to lose his shadow, he would run away from it as far and fast as he possibly could.

But life wasn’t a fucking fairytale. It was a horror movie, as far as he was concerned. People living their lives in complete oblivion of the darkness surrounding them until it spat out a monster. And monsters... monsters weren’t hiding in closets or under beds.

Monsters were hiding in the flat next door, in the old house in the middle of the street, the one with the pretty front garden, they hid in subways, busses and trains, in office blocks and factories.

And Mitchell knew all about those monsters, because he was one of them. 

New Zealand had been just another step, another leg of the journey that led nowhere and would never end. During the last decade he’d gotten better at keeping the monster at bay, keeping the hunger in check, and he even had managed to have sex a few times without feeling the urge to kill.

That all changed when he, more than qualified for the job due to his nature, had started working as a member of the bar staff at a nightclub, a hot spot of the Auckland nightlife. It was there that he had met the one being that not only knew him for what he was but who also was safe from the darkness inside him, the monster that Mitchell was hiding.

He’d never have looked at him twice if it hadn’t been for the look in those eyes, boring right into his soul as if he’d known with that single glance what Mitchell was. 

He hadn’t, as it later turned out, but what Anders had seen at that moment was that this barman wasn’t a normal human being. He’d told him that even before he took Mitchell home. 

It had been powerful. It had left Mitchell drained and yet satisfied in a way he had thought was forever lost to him. No mindless, carnal rutting to slake the hunger of his body. No warring against the instincts that told him to kill. Just sex. Mindless, powerful sex. He had felt alive for a moment. Truly alive again.

Mitchell had been helpless like a moth around a candle flame, and he had said yes every time Anders had asked him to come home with him. 

One of those nights, Mitchell had learned what it was that made Anders so different from other mortals. 

He wasn’t a mortal himself. That explained a lot. But there were still things it didn’t explain, things that Mitchell wasn’t ready to admit, though. He only knew that he could never get enough of this man who carried the spirit of a god. He tasted his blood a few times, but it was overpowering. It wasn’t food.  
It was intoxicating, more so than any drug he’d tried. And it was as addictive.

With the memories of Harrick and Seth gnawing at him Mitchell had finally forced himself away from that addictive, intoxicating man. He didn’t want to lose control. He didn’t want anyone to have that much power over him again. And even if Anders had never, ever treated him as anything other than an equal, Mitchell knew, deep down, that if Anders whistled, he’d come running. 

Anders, however, refused to be given up. He wasn’t letting go, and Mitchell didn’t want to know if it was because of a strange feeling of affection or because he, too, had felt the pull and thrill of power. Mitchell wouldn’t even blame him if the latter was the case, and could not imagine it would be the former.

All that crossed through Mitchell’s mind in the space of no more than a few heartbeats. 

Vampires didn’t usually measure time in heartbeats, for obvious reasons.

But here he was, John Mitchell, a vampire for a hundred years now, and confronted with the one thing, the one force that made his heart beat again as long as he was in its presence. And that force was manifest in the man standing before him, radiating off the relatively small frame and lending him an air of power that had Mitchell spellbound and enraptured and even after so many months... this was not something he could get clean off. Not after having tasted it once.

“I told you, I can’t.”  
Anders leaned back without bothering to hide his displeasure. “Yes, you did that. A bazillion times, in fact. But you never told me why. I don’t know how many times I need to tell you that this bloodsucking business...”  
“I no longer suck blood,” Mitchell growled.  
“Jesus, don’t get your knickers in a twist, Mitch. Not again.” He shuffled around in some papers. “You said you needed more space. You said you needed time. We had a good thing going, and if you’re going to deny now that we had the best sex on the planet then I’m going to stand on a chair and smack you.”  
The attempt of the joke wasn’t lost on Mitchell, but it failed to amuse him.  
“Look, all I want is an answer.” Anders looked up at him again, all humour vanished. “I know it was something I was doing wrong somehow, but if you never talk to me about it, then it’s never going to change.”

Mitchell huffed out a mirthless chuckle. “I could write a book about it and stuff that down your throat and it wouldn’t change anything.”  
“But then at least tell me what it is!” Anders crossed his arms. “Because I’m going to tell you something now, John Mitchell, but I’m only going to say it once, so cock your ears. No pun intended.”  
Mitchell rolled his eyes.  
“Here’s the deal, Mitch. You’re not a mortal. I’m not a mortal. And before I met you, I liked sex with mortals. But after we did the thing, sex with mortals turned into soggy bread and you...” He slid down from the desk and very much invaded Mitchell’s personal space. His voice was low and somehow, dangerous. “You are the only real food I can get. There’s power there, Mitch, and whatever else there is, I have tasted it, and I won’t give up on that even if it gets me killed. I’ve waited long enough and I am not going to wait any longer to feel that again because it sure as fuck will kill me if I don’t get any more of it.”

Mitchell took a step back and crossed his arms. “So whatcha gonna do? Tie me to your bed?”  
A dark little smirk appeared on Anders’s face. “Don’t tempt me.”

After a minute of a silent stare-off, Anders abruptly turned away and shuffled a picture out of the stack of papers. “Here, look at that.”  
Mitchell looked. “Who’s she?”  
“She calls herself Cassandra, she’s a dancer at the Blue Lagoon club. Met her there last week.”  
“So what? You after a threesome?”  
“You’re tempting me again.” Anders held the picture out to him. “Look closer.”

Looking closer, Mitchell suddenly realised that the picture looked... off. There was something there that seemed... “It’s photo shopped,” he finally ventured.  
“Yes.” Anders held the photo closer to his face. “But not the way you think.”  
“And what am I thinking?”  
“You are thinking that someone fiddled with this to make her look more beautiful, give her bigger boobs, a thinner waist... that’s what you’re thinking, right?”  
“Yeah.” Mitchell shrugged. “Something like that. But what has the chick to do with any of this?”  
“Look again.” Anders thrust the photo at him. “This, Mitch, is not a photograph.”  
Mitchell rolled his eyes again. “What the fuck are you after, man?”

Anders dropped the photo again and met his eyes with a dark look. “It’s a digital painting. A self-portrait, in fact. She doesn’t like to have her picture taken. Good thing that cameras aren’t allowed at the shows down there. Or...” He made a significant pause. “Some people would be really confused when they were looking at pictures of an empty stage.”

It took Mitchell a few seconds to process those words.

“Fuck, Anders you don’t...”  
“I do, in fact.” Anders’s voice was sharp now. “I told you I want that again? I want that again, and if I can’t have it with you, I’m going to have it with someone else.”  
“Are you...” Mitchell shook his head with a shaky, breathless little laugh. “Are you trying to make me jealous?”  
“The fuck does it look like, you moron?”

“No.” Mitchell took another step back. “You... you...” His voice rose and he ran his hands through the already unruly locks of his hair. He looked positively feral afterwards. “You aren’t the only one who’s addicted to that game, A. J. You feel power?” His chest was heaving in heavy breaths, breaths he didn’t have to fake for appearance’s sake. “You see this? Do you see this? This is what you’re doing to me!” He grabbed Anders’s hand and pressed it to the left side of his chest, against the heartbeat he had no right to feel. 

Anders stared at their joined hands with an unreadable expression before pulling away.

“So we’re both addicted, huh? Then it’s a win-win, really. We both get what we want and fuck, Mitch, I want as much of this as I can get. So now it’s your call, mate. Because I’m going to have more of that. With you, or without. But, to be honest, in this instance I’d prefer tall dark and handsome over pretty blonde.” He held up the photo again and put it down. “Your call,” he said again.

“I don’t want to be your toy, Anders,” Mitchell rasped in a dry voice.

“You’re not a toy, Mitch.” Anders slid down from the desk. “I’m a drug to you, fine. I can see that, and I can see why. But I don’t understand why you don’t want it if all I do is offering it to you.” He stood close to Mitchell again, too close, their breaths almost mingling now. “But you’re a drug to me, too. You’re addicted? I am too. It makes you feel alive? It makes me feel like a god. If I’d never tasted this I’d never have this problem, just like you. But I am gonna croak it if I don’t get more of this. I can’t go cold turkey, Mitch. Maybe you can, maybe it’s different for you, maybe you’re stronger than me. But I can’t. And I am going to take it, and if it’s from you or some vampire chick... well, that’s entirely up to you now.”

With that, Anders swept past him and grabbed his jacket and phone on his way to the door. 

“You coming?”

Mitchell ground his teeth together so hard it hurt. 

“I have a date in ten, so make up your mind.”

Mitchell stared at the picture on the desk. He picked it up. Anders leaned against the doorframe.

And all of a sudden, Mitchell’s eyes turned black and he hissed at the picture, fangs out, before he tore it apart. He spun around, and with his eyes back to normal, he met Ander’s gaze. Anders smiled at him with a twitch of his head before he left the office, Mitchell on his heels.


End file.
